


The Black Lotus

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Series: Complementary: a Maldrisa get-together [2]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Anxiety, Awkward Romance, Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Cunnilingus, Dating, Developing Friendships, F/M, Light BDSM, Oral Sex, Pansexual Malcolm Bright, Pegging, Self-Doubt, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: In "oddities of human existence" Malcolm and Edrisa run into one another at a BDSM play party and sleep together.Continuing in that universe, they now have to work a case together, one that hits uncomfortably close to their shared interest in the kink community and which has the marks of another copycat. It's a little awkward. So is trying to figure out how normal people date.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Edrisa Tanaka
Series: Complementary: a Maldrisa get-together [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712407
Comments: 45
Kudos: 114





	1. it's gonna be awkward

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [TheCosmicMushroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCosmicMushroom/) for invaluable advice and helping me work out the plot on this! Also thank you very much to DestielIsOTP who left a lovely comment that single-handedly inspired me to continue this into a series.

While he waits for his coffee to brew, stereo going in the background, Malcolm plucks an affirmation card from the stack. Sunshine squawks at him from her cage, and he pivots on his heel and holds the card aloft to read it aloud to her.

“I see myself as a gift to my friends… and my community,” he says, starting off strong and then slowing as his brows creep upwards. Well, there are certainly a few ways to interpret that.

A few choice, _fresh_ images spring to mind.

He scrapes the edge of the card against his lip, and a pleasant tingle ripples across his skin. The hickeys he’d accumulated across his chest at the play party are only just now beginning to fade—the memories, on the other hand, still burn brightly. He had definitely given a whole lot of himself to others that night….

It’d been fun. Very fun. Hooking up with Edrisa still feels surreal, but when Malcolm thinks back on it, his stomach does the good kind of flips. A part of him had been worried her interest in him skewed towards the sort of fascination he encounters more often than he’s comfortable with—the halo effect of having such a charming serial killer for a father and a past scattered in tabloids and true crime documentaries—but her attraction that night was genuine. She’d been demonstrably thoughtful in many ways, if a bit quirky.

“I am a gift to my friends and my community,” he repeats, and wonders just how much of a gift Edrisa will view him as whenever he’s called to a new crime scene. The odds seem pretty evenly split that she’ll be delighted or embarrassed to see him. Maybe a bit of both.

“What do you think, Sunshine?”

Sunshine answers with a little squawk and rubs her beak against her perch.

“Yeah, I don’t know how it’s going to go on the next case, either.”

* * *

_The next case_

“Get ready for a weird one, kid,” Gil says, meeting Malcolm on the sidewalk outside of the crime scene. He lifts up the tape for Malcolm to duck under and nods towards the entrance that sits tucked below street level. He leads the way down steep steps, twisting to keep his broad shoulders from snagging his coat against the walls.

“I do love weird,” Malcolm says, following along. He takes note of the flyers plastered to the brick as they descend and enter into a long, narrow hallway flanked with doors. Most of the handmade posters advertise bands or zines, while a few seek to offload seemingly random types of equipment. A thick knot of cables run along the upper edge of the low ceiling. “What is this place?”

“A hacker and maker space, whatever that is.”

A uniformed officer waits at the end of the hall and nods to Gil before opening the door for them.

Malcolm’s eyes widen as he follows Gil into a room that’s at least ten degrees colder than the hall. “Okay. Not what I was expecting,” he says, eyeing the very faithful reproduction of a morgue.

The space is roughly ten-by-twenty. One wall is lined with rows of stainless steel drawers—possibly a facade—and hanging on the opposite wall are a few shelves stocked with gloves and lube and a variety of restraints, floggers, and other BDSM implements. A St. Andrew’s cross fills the far corner, and in the middle of the room, Edrisa is studiously inspecting a mutilated body atop a mortuary table.

“Seems like a few of the doors out there are hobby rooms available for rent—woodworking, basic robotics. This one though, well,” Gil clears his throat with a vaguely embarrassed cough, “seems to cater to more personal hobbies.” He crosses his arms and moves to the foot of the table. “You saw Dani and JT when you got here. They’re interviewing the couple who found the body, the guy who pays for the space, and getting names of everyone who’s a regular here.”

“Malcolm, hi!” Edrisa says, glancing up at him with a spreading smile. She gestures at the room and the body. “Can you believe this? We’d _just_ been talking about a room like this at the party the other day.”

Malcolm blithely ignores the look Gil casts his way that says he both wants to and does not want to know how their social lives intersect. “And, if I remember, we also talked about the prospect of an interesting murder,” Malcolm says, steering her focus towards the conversation they’d held at the end of the night and not any topics covered when he’d been naked and high on endorphins.

“We did,” she says, nodding in agreement. “And this one. Wow. It’s a doozy.”

“What can you tell me about our victim?” he asks, circling the table. He can feel Edrisa’s presence humming in the air, vibrant and pleased to see him. He keeps his eyes on the victim in order to ignore the many, many reminders hanging around them of their mutual interest in BDSM and kink. 

There’s a lot of blood and viscera on the table, and as Malcolm gets a better look at the mutilation, he frowns. The distraction of pleasant memories recede, lost in the wake of the slow, sickening twist that seizes his guts. “Is that—?”

“A rather sloppy recreation of the Broken Lotus? Yes! You can tell the killer was trying to reproduce one of Dr. Whitly’s most famous victims,” she says, pointing at the severing of the limbs at each joint.

A few edged blades hang on the wall near the floggers, but they’re blunted for sensation play and nowhere near sharp enough. Malcolm’s already dismissed them as either the murder weapon or whatever the killer used to take apart the body. The dust on the handles confirm they haven’t been taken off the hook for a while. This was probably done with a quality kitchen or hunting knife—something with a fixed blade and a keen edge that could hold up after contact with the metal of the table several times.

“There aren’t many hesitation marks,” Malcolm notes. The work is skilled, but not the sort of surgical precision Martin had employed. “Maybe here at the shoulder… It looks like they started at the glenohumeral joint and worked their way down.”

“My thoughts _exactly_ ,” Edrisa says. She shifts closer to him to point something out, but as she glances up at him, she loses her train of thought. Clearly, the experience of fucking him so hard he’d nearly blacked out hasn’t left her any less tongue-tied around him.

“Counter-clockwise, do you think?” he asks, giving her a gentle verbal nudge back towards the case at hand.

“Right. Counter-clockwise,” she breathes. Her teeth briefly drag over her lip, and Malcolm keeps his gaze down to avoid the new look that Gil lobs his way. Edrisa manages to get over their sudden proximity and reaches out to gently press at the edges of what appears to be a stab wound. The cut extends over an inch to the bottom edge of where the victim has been crudely bifurcated. “I think this may have been what killed our victim. Based on the angle, the murder weapon probably hit the common iliac artery, and they bled out.”

Malcolm glances down at the floor at the scatter of markers flagging key blood stains. “So, he wasn’t killed on the table.”

“Definitely not. My best guess is stabbed first, mutilated after. I won’t know for sure until I administer a full autopsy, but—”

“Why the separation of the torso?” Malcolm wonders aloud. Martin’s victim had only been taken apart at the joints.

“Broken Lotus meets Black Dahlia?” Gil suggests dryly.

Malcolm’s gaze flicks up. “That’s not a bad guess,” he says.

“I was kidding.”

“Yes, but now that you mention it, check out the placement of the intestines,” Edrisa says and lifts the very edge of the victim’s hip. “If that’s intentional, it fits.”

Gil heaves a sigh and scratches at his temple. He pulls his phone out of his coat pocket, and a small evidence bag slides out with it. “So, we’ve got a hybrid copycat on our hands. You have enough here to get started on a profile, Bright?”

Slowly Malcolm rises, and as he does his eye catches on the bag sticking out of Gil’s pocket. There’s something black and satin tucked inside. A blindfold, Malcolm recognizes, a fresh curl of nervous curiosity winding through the acid in his stomach. “I’ll want to know more about our victim of course, but—” he trails off, his brain switching track mid-thought. He points at the bag. “Was he wearing that when you found him?”

“No,” Gil replies, the phone to his ear. He lifts his elbow out of the way as Malcolm takes a long step towards him and reaches to pinch the corner of the bag and ease it out of Gil’s pocket. “It was on the floor behind the big wooden X.”

“That’s a St Andrew’s cross,” Malcolm says absently as he straightens and shakes the plastic to smooth out the wrinkles. He flips the bag over, moving the blindfold with his thumbs until the violet V embroidered in the fabric shows in the clear space between the evidence labels. Silently, he turns it towards Edrisa.

“That belongs to Vicki,” Edrisa says soberly. Her gaze jumps up to Malcolm as she adds, “You were wear— uh, _very_ clever to look for an identifying mark.”

Overhearing, Gil moves the phone away from his ear and uses it to gesture between Malcolm and Edrisa. “You two know who that blindfold belongs to?” he asks, thankfully not seeming to notice Edrisa’s mid-sentence catch.

“Unfortunately, I think we do.”

“I’m not going to ask how, but soon as we’re back at the station, you coordinate with Dani or JT on getting an address.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I know where Vicki is,” Edrisa says. “It’s almost five.”

Gil waits for her to elaborate a little less patiently than Malcolm does. They’re not so different in the way they think—brain working a little too fast and always skipping ahead. Malcolm, however, has learned to slow down and fill the spaces between the leaps in his thoughts with more words to get from point A to point B. Sometimes, it’s still too many and tests the patience of the people around him, but generally he makes it work.

“She’s a chef, she’ll be at work,” Edrisa explains and follows up quickly with the name of the restaurant, the cross street, and a recommendation to try the lamb.

Gil waves Malcolm towards the door. “Well, let’s go talk to your friend.”

“Edrisa should probably come with us,” he says. “If the owner of this blindfold is a chef, we’re going to want to bag her knives.”

* * *

The sign is set to ‘Closed’, but the front door to the restaurant isn’t locked; Gil holds it open for Malcolm and Edrisa to enter. It’s a nice place, trendy in reclaimed wood and tables set up in a way that Malcolm guesses half the dishes are served family-style. Food is never first and foremost on Malcolm’s mind, not even when his stomach is empty and cramping, but he wonders about Edrisa. Is she the type to dine out all the time, or does she prefer homemade food? He knows Gil loves cooking; he’d probably feed the entire team nightly, if they’d let him.

A guy in his early twenties glances up at them in between putting down place settings. “Sorry, we’re not open for another hour.”

“And we’re not hungry,” Gil says, lifting the hem of his sweater to flash his badge. “We’re looking for Vicki.”

The guy’s eyes widen, exhibiting that kick of immediate fear that comes with a sudden signal of authority. “Vicki,” he calls out, “you’ve got cops!”

“Cops?” a questioning voice floats back.

The kitchen is open to the dining area; there are at least four people in there, hustling to get ready for the dinner crowd, maybe a couple ducking out the back, just in case. Malcolm schools his posture as Vicki emerges, wiping her hands on a small towel. He’d had those hands _all_ over him only a few days ago, and he tries very hard not to speculate based on such little evidence that he may have subbed for a murderer.

“Eddie? Malcolm? What the fuck is going on? Is this about—”

“There’s been a murder,” Malcolm says, gracelessly interrupting before she can say anything about him and Edrisa. He can feel Gil’s disapproval, but of all the conversations he’s not ready to have with Gil, being actively kinky in his sex life is pretty high up on the list. “We need your help.”

“Can this wait? Tuesdays aren’t my busiest night, but I’ve still got a kitchen to run.”

“It can’t,” Gil says, broaching no argument with his tone.

Vicki bristles visibly which tells Malcolm she’s a natural domme and enjoys getting her way in and out of the bedroom. And Gil, well, he’s used to being top dog and doesn’t generally back down when challenged. Malcolm quickly eases between them to diffuse any building tension and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“V, I’m going to show you a photo of a dead man’s face,” he says, his gaze darting back to Edrisa before he holds up his phone for the woman they’d ‘played’ with.

“Call me Vicki… please. And sure, whatever is going to get this over with faster.”

“Thank you,” Malcolm says, inwardly wincing at how obviously he’s reacting to her. He turns his phone towards her and swipes through a couple shots he’d taken of the deceased’s face. “Do you recognize this person?”

She squints at the images and looks like she’s about to say no when her brow furrows. She boldly plucks the phone out of his hands to swipe back and zoom in. Her nails click against the screen, they’re immaculate but not the wickedly long acrylics she was wearing the other night. “Hold on. I think I might. Does he have a birthmark near his ribs?”

Edrisa steps forward, producing her own phone. “He does! It’s shaped sort of like Texas.”

“She probably doesn’t need to see that,” Malcolm says, holding out a hand to stay her from pulling up any additional photos considering the victim was bisected just below his rib cage.

“Right…” Edrisa says, clutching her phone in both hands and pulling a face. “Guess it is a little bit gruesome. It’s not every day you see a—you know what? Nevermind.”

“Did you know him recreationally?” Gil asks, and produces the evidence bag with the blindfold in it.

Vicki gives it a dismissive glance, seemingly unruffled at the sight. Gil will probably read that as suspicious, but Malcolm is paying keen attention to her stress indicators, and to him, it reads as the same sort of confidence that gets her whatever she asks for as a domme. She knows she’s not directly connected to this murder and likely has the resources to fight any drummed up charges.

“Is that mine? I’ve got a dozen or so, but it must be, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. And yes, recreationally, although we’ve never played together. He’s not really my type,” Vicki says and gives Malcolm a particular look as she slips the phone back into his hands. “I know him as Greg, but that might not be his real name. He’s into caning and corporal punishment—a real pain slut. He ate here maybe four days ago? I’ve got a few kinkster regulars, and he comes in once every couple months, but the last time… I don’t know, he seemed nervous about something.”

“Do you have video?” Malcolm asks, pointing to the discreet cameras he’s spotted.

“My restaurant manager can help you with that. I’ll grab her.” Vicki’s about to turn to go do that when she spots Gil tense up. She pauses and locks eyes with him like it’s a contest of wills. Malcolm swallows down a few conflicting emotions as her gaze slides to Edrisa and then to him before she says, “Unless there’s something else you need from me?”

He swallows, half-expecting her to end the sentence with ‘baby’.

Stepping up beside him, Gil puts his hands on his hips, a silent display to try and prove who’s really in charge. “Yeah, there is. We’re gonna need to take your knives.”


	2. what is normal, really...

Back at the precinct, Malcom works on his profile, sifting through witness statements and additional notes from Dani and JT. Hitting a wall, he glances up and rubs the tension out of the back of his neck. It feels like no one has moved for hours: Gil is holed up in his office with a mile-high stack of reports; Dani is at her desk, still obviously running searches on the list of people they know had access to the room; JT is busy combing through footage from the restaurant. For as many people who can be connected to the crime scene, the board is frustratingly sparse on solid leads.

He wishes he had something more to give the team to work with, but there’s just not enough information to make a guess as to what kind of message the copycat was sending with the mutilation of the bodies. If there even _is_ a message that goes deeper than idolizing two of the most well-known dismembered victims in the last hundred years.

“I see myself as a gift to my friends and my community,” he mumbles under his breath, trying to realign his thoughts. There are no glaring indicators yet that this is a serial murderer, he reminds himself. He can take his time with this profile and do this right.

He’s about to put his head down and read through the witness statements again when he spots the flash of Edrisa’s white coat near the elevators. Unsurprisingly, she heads straight to him in the situation room instead of Gil or either of the detectives, and Malcolm hides a smile as they notice and rise to follow her like iron filings to a magnet.

“Labs found no trace of human blood or tissue found on Vicki’s knives,” she says triumphantly, dropping the report on the table. “She’s clear!”

“They could’ve been sterilized,” Dani says, picking up the sheet and giving it a read.

“Yeah, but I’ve been going through all that footage,” JT says. “Chef Vicki was in the restaurant last night until three in the morning and never left.”

Gil leans against the door, looking a little sour. It could be he was hoping for a slam dunk, or it could be that the sole mention of Vicki gets his hackles up. She’d gotten under his skin in record time. “So, we can consider that a dead end. Any sign of our victim on those tapes?”

“I found him. It’s not a great view of the table, but I’m scrubbing through it now.”

“Mind if I help?” Malcolm says, eager to do something more productive than shuffle papers around.

JT doesn’t look thrilled at the offer, but he rarely does, and Malcolm’s learned to recognize the difference between reticent consent and dismissive sarcasm in JT’s tone. It’s subtle, but his, “Be my guest,” is the former.

With no other news, one-by-one the detectives file back out of the room. Malcolm skirts the table before Edrisa can follow them, plucking at her sleeve to get to her stay behind a moment.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t entirely decided what he wants to say or how to say it before she’s looking at him expectantly. “I um,” he says, stumbling over his own words. “Do you eat?”

She blinks, and he cringes.

“I mean,” he says, slowing himself down to speak more clearly, and very glad that no one else is within earshot. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”

“I’d _love_ to! What time? I’m off in an hour, but that’s early for most people. Cheaper, though, which I guess you don’t really need to worry about, eh, Mr. Moneybags,” she says, and throws a playful punch at his arm. It lands harder than she probably means for it to.

This is not the first time that Malcolm has realized he has no idea when normal people eat. Generally speaking, he chokes something down whenever he remembers he ought to, or when people—mostly his mother—insist on having him join them. “Good, and right, an hour sounds fine. Good. Great. And, of course, this will be on me, I’ll just… help JT for a bit then come down and find you? Is that good?”

He dies a little inside at how many times the word ‘good’ just came out of his mouth.

“It’s a date!” she says, and then her eyes widen as she blurts out, “I didn’t mean that.”

Something must show plainly enough on his face for her to pick up on because her brows pull together, and she sucks on her lip before hedging, “Unless… _you_ did, and this _is_ a date. Oh gosh, is it? Did you just ask me out on a date-date? Sorry, I am not that good at this sort of thing.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” he admits. “But yes, if you’re interested, it’s a date-date.”

“Cool,” she breathes, in the exact same soft exhale as when she’d been poised on her knees between his spread thighs. Only this time she’s probably thinking about what it’ll be like sitting across from him at a restaurant rather than piercing him or partaking in a little medical role play. _Probably._

Malcolm walks with her as far as JT’s desk before exchanging a second, equally awkward goodbye. He gnaws on the inside of his cheek as he tries to pull his thoughts out of the maelstrom of nerves that have replaced his insides. Asking Edrisa on a date in the middle of a case they both have a vague connection to is maybe not his smartest idea.

He can feel JT’s attention on him as he steals a chair from a nearby desk. “You two aren’t...?“ JT asks, eyes narrowing.

Malcolm raises an eyebrow and plays innocent as he takes a seat. “Aren’t what?”

“Nevermind, bruh. None of my business,” JT says, thankfully changing the subject to point out the victim on the screen. “This is our guy, Greg, here. These two at the bar are the only ones who came in after him alone.”

Malcolm scoots in closer, ignoring the look JT gives him when their knees bump. It was an accident, and besides, he can tell JT doesn’t actually mind the close contact. “Is there another view of the bar?”

“Yeah, but you can’t see their faces clearly in that one.”

“What about the reflections? There’s a mirror behind the bar.”

“You think he’s doing some James Bond-level shit?”

Malcolm reaches bodily across JT to grab the mouse, only thinking to apologize when he catches Dani’s glance at throwing himself practically across her partner’s lap. So, maybe that was a little too much close contact, but it’s just easier to do it himself than ask JT to rewind the video to the right spot. “Here,” Malcolm says, relinquishing control of the mouse again. “The woman on the left, her body language _seems_ tense, but she keeps looking at the door and stopping herself from drinking too much; she’s waiting for someone. But this guy...” Malcolm points to the other figure, “he’s hardly touching his drink, and he’s looking directly in the mirror.”

JT finds the other angle and puts up both windows side-by-side to sync up their timecodes. The reflections are a little fuzzy but Malcolm is certain he’s right. The man at the bar has been watching the victim.

“All right,” JT says, seeing it, too. He takes a screenshot and jots down the timecode and filename in his notes. “I’ll put that guy at the top of the list. What do you say we go through the rest of this so you can tell me if you spot anyone else suspicious, Sherlock.”

After an hour of going through footage, no other real suspect stands out, and the more Malcolm sees of the man at the bar, the more he’s certain the guy is a pro. The man could be former law enforcement or special ops, or even a hitman—although, if that were the case, they wouldn’t be looking at the kind of crime scene the killer left behind. If he’s not the killer, why was he tailing the victim?

Malcolm’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to find it’s not a call, but the reminder he’d set for himself that reads: dinner, don’t forget. Fuck. _Dinner_. He’s glad he thought to set the reminder for himself, otherwise this wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten absorbed in a case and left someone waiting on him.

“I’ve got to go,” he says, dismissing the alarm on the reminder. “You’ve got this, right?”

JT gives him a look that seems put out, but there is maybe the slightest touch of fondness in JT’s tone as he says dryly, “Yeah, Bright, I think I got this.”

Malcolm’s pretty sure he’s grown on the guy quite a bit.

He grins and claps JT on the shoulder before popping out of the chair. He texts Edrisa a quick note, typing and then erasing a smiley face and a flirty kiss and few other emoji before just hitting send on a simple: _on my way down!_

She’s changed into street clothes and is waiting for him by the elevator. Her big, puffy coat hangs draped over her arm. It’s the same one she’d been wearing when he’d walked her home after the party.

He calls a car and lets the driver decide where to take them. They end up in a place in Alphabet City with a wine bar and a half dozen two-tops. It’s cozy and fairly empty this early in the evening, and no one seems to notice that they’re discussing autopsy results over appetizers.

“I’m still waiting on the tox screen, but I feel fairly certain that the knife wound in the abdomen was the killing blow and happened first. Although with the severing of the torso, it’s impossible to know if there were hesitation marks,” Edrisa says. As she talks, she punctuates her gestures with the knife in her hand. She leans forward over the table as she gets particularly excited to share that she found a nick in the artery and a potential defensive wound at the victim's wrist.

Malcolm responds naturally in kind, his hands in motion to illustrate his words. “What sort of defensive wound?” he asks, raising his arm up in front of him to invite her to play it out with the knife.

She doesn’t hesitate to reach out and grasp his wrist to move his arm into place. Her fingers are sure and solid as she deftly demonstrates the angle of the potential blow, and even as part of his mind is absorbing the new information about the case, he can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have her pin his wrists down.

“So, the victim was possibly backing away with their hands in front of them,” he says, extrapolating on the position. “Maybe even trying to de-escalate the situation.”

“My thoughts exactly!”

From what he’s read about the man, Greg was lacking in people skills and a bit abrasive. Talking down an attacker doesn’t seem his style, and while the likelihood he knew his attacker was already high, this makes Malcolm certain of it. The man had let his killer in close before realizing he was in danger. Malcolm’s eyes narrow thoughtfully.

“So Misstr—I mean, Vicki—she knew Greg, but you didn’t….”

“Don’t you think I would’ve said something if I had?” Edrisa says, retreating into her chair with a slight furrow in her brow. She lowers the knife down next to her plate, mood dampening.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Malcolm rushes to say, trying to smooth things over before she starts to worry his interest in her lies only with the case. “I’m just trying to understand the local scene. In DC, it felt like everybody knew everybody.”

“Well, I may have been at a party with him before, but I’m really not sure. Like V, he’s not really my type.”

Which leaves Malcolm wondering what her type is. He can feel the part of his brain switching away from thinking about motive to start looking for context clues in Edrisa’s posture, but there’s a better way to find that out. “Do you mind telling me what your type is?” he asks.

A bit of her usual energy comes back in her voice as she answers. “Oh. You, of course. But… you already knew that, so you’re asking in a more general sense about my preferences.” As she follows that logic to its conclusion, she seems to get lost in thought for a moment, or, perhaps, overwhelmed by the question.

Malcolm nibbles at a bit of bread and lets her think it through.

“I guess I like people who notice me. For me, I mean, or my skills. Like you did the first time we met! You complimented me on my sutures. That was really nice of you.”

He smiles. He knows there’s an aspect of her that’s more than a little starstruck by him and his casework at the FBI, but he’s happy to know that the seed was planted even before that. And thankfully, despite her interest in his history, she’s never given any indication that she admires the Surgeon, himself. She definitely admires his technique, but Malcolm can’t fault her for that. He does, too.

“It’s part of why I like bondage and needle play, I guess,” she says. “I’m good at it, and people put their trust in me. I mostly don’t need to improvise, and I can plan out ahead of time what I want to do. It’s very meditative.”

“It’s meditative for me, too,” he confesses. He rolls his eyes as he adds, “I don’t know how obvious it is, but it’s hard for me to trust people, so the way we met at the play party… that’s one way I feel like I can give a bit of myself to others. In the middle of a scene like that—or as a needle bottom—when people are looking at me, I know they’re looking at me as an object and not as—not as my father’s son.”

Edrisa studies him thoughtfully for a bit, then gives him a slow smile that forces him to break eye contact first. A bit of heat comes into his face, and a slight tremble starts in his fingers. Confessing how he feels to someone who is relatively close to him isn’t something he’s accustomed to.

“I hope it didn’t seem like I was interrogating you,” he says. “Sometimes, I can’t switch off, and cases like this, they get in my head. Usually that’s a good thing for me.”

“It’s okay. I like talking about work.”

“Me, too, but tell me more about you. What’s your, um, your favorite song?” Malcolm asks in an effort to stop thinking about the specifics of the case.

She freezes like he’s asked her an impossible question.

“Don’t like music?” he teases, though he knows that’s not true.

“I’m terrible at picking favorites,” Edrisa says. “Also, when someone asks me what my number one something is, I can never remember anything I actually like. Just now, the only thing I could even think of was ‘Old Town Road.’ ”

He prompts Edrisa with a more concrete question, instead, and asks what the last movie she’d seen was— _The Velocipastor_ apparently, which she gleefully tells him the plot for, and it turns out she’s a fan of schlock horror and horror, in general. Malcolm very much is _not,_ but admits he’s never really watched much to begin with. From there, they spend the rest of the meal branching from topic to topic. Sometimes, it’s still related to work—forensic methodology and evidence collection—and sometimes, they veer naturally into where, besides piercing, their kinks overlap.

Afterwards, he offers to escort her home again, and it feels like no time at all before they’re outside her building again. Suddenly, Malcolm’s heart starts racing. He hasn’t been on a date-date in a very long while, and almost all of them had fizzled before the check came. The rest had veered quickly into sparks and hookups, but not romance. Should he try to kiss her? Ask to kiss her? Is kissing something normal people even do on actual first dates with people who they want to see again?

Luckily, Edrisa asks him first. “Do you want to kiss me? Because I feel like maybe you do, and I _really_ want to kiss you.”

“God, yes,” Malcolm says and surges towards her to catch her lips.

She kisses back, breaking briefly into a grin when she notices how he melts into the push of her tongue. She lands a sharp nipping bite to his lip that leaves him aching with want, and his mouth goes slack on a soft moan. Maybe she’ll want to invite him in; it’s not like they haven’t already slept together. Maybe she’d let him spend a few hours between her legs and get her off over and over.

He’s about to suggest it when his pocket buzzes.

Pressed in a line against him, Edrisa steps back as she feels it.

“Sorry, I—” Malcolm fishes his phone out of his pocket.

_Claremont Correctional._

“Do you need to take that?”

He licks his lips. He doesn’t. He could decline the call and say to hell with Martin. But this case….

“It’s okay, if you do. I mean, it’s not like I’ll never see you again. We _do_ work together.”

Malcolm hesitates another heartbeat, then smiles and nods in thanks as he accepts the call.

Martin’s cry of “Malcolm, my boy!” rings in his ear, but before he replies, Malcolm holds the phone away in order to lean down and press a kiss to Edrisa’s cheek.

She bounces lightly on her heels before wiggling her fingertips in a goodbye wave and turning around to dash up the steps. He watches her disappear into her building.

Martin is saying something, Malcolm realizes, and he drags his attention to the call as he starts down the street.

“But enough about that,” Martin says, and honestly Malcolm’s not sad to have missed whatever _that_ was. “What’s this I’m hearing about on the news? The Black Lotus? Did your sister come up with that moniker? It’s catchy, I have to say.”

“Actually, it was Gil.”

“And here I’ve always thought that man had no imagination,” Martin says, somewhat snidely. “Rather like our killer, don’t you think?”

Malcolm frowns, trying to guess where Martin’s coming from based on the limited information available to the press. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Martin says, and Malcolm knows without seeing that his father is sliding to the edge of his chair and steepling his fingers thoughtfully. “ _My_ Lotus plus one of the most famous murder victims of the twentieth century? If this killer strikes again, you’ll be looking at another remix of some of true crime‘s greatest hits, don’t you think?”

“I’ve considered that,” Malcolm says, “but being in that room, I’m not sure we have a serial murderer on our hands. It was staged, but clumsy.”

Now, Martin would be sitting up, his hands sliding over his thighs and tipping his head back in thought. “Well, in that case, maybe you’re looking at the greatest hits for a different reason.”

“Something other than an homage? That could be,” Malcolm says. It’s a new angle he can work from anyway, and he bids Martin a hasty goodbye before he gets dragged into anything more personal.

Mind occupied, belly full, and chest stoked with a warm soft glow, Malcolm heads home to refine his profile.


	3. what's there to judge?

Malcolm is running on a solid three hours of sleep when he heads to Gil’s office first thing.

“So, last night after I had dinner with Edrisa, my father called. We had a little chat and between the both of them, it got me thinking,” Malcolm says excitedly, and despite the flicker of confusion crossing Gil’s face, he doesn’t stop to explain the situation further. “What if this isn’t actually a copycat? During dinner, I asked Edrisa something, and the way she responded is, I think, typical of most people. 

“Off the top of your head: what’s the first thing that comes to mind if I ask you to name a band.”

“Kid, what’re you—”

“A band, Gil. Any genre.”

“I dunno, The Beatles.”

“Exactly. A band so famous it’s in the public consciousness or gets a lot of airtime,” Malcolm goes on, gesturing broadly as he sees Gil start to pick up on the thread. “But could you say, name every song on _Abbey Road?_ Or, one step further, do you really know all the lyrics to ‘Come Together?’ ”

“You’re saying this killer emulated both the Broken Lotus and the Black Dahlia purely because they’re famous?”

“That’s my theory. He took the two most famous victims he could think of and the flashiest details of each case—the Lotus was severed at all the joints, the Dahlia was bisected and her intestines piled under her—and he did nothing beyond that. He might’ve actually started with one and then switched to the other when he realized how little he remembered. He’s not a budding serial killer crafting an homage; he panicked and covered up a very basic murder with the only details that came to mind.”

Gil stands up and rounds his desk. “Not a bad theory, kid,” he says, his hand landing on Malcolm’s shoulder to give it a squeeze.

“I don’t know that I would’ve made the leap without Edrisa’s help,” he says. Or, he thinks rather more begrudgingly, his father’s.

“You and her are getting chummy,” Gil remarks. “Parties, dinner.” 

“Well, Edrisa and I, we, um—we have several common interests.”

“More than an obsession with creepy murders?” JT says, appearing at the doorway.

“Obsessing about creepy murders is kind of my job.” Malcolm points out.

“Touché.”

“I hate to interrupt this conversation,” Dani says, tapping a notepad against the doorframe as she slides into the space alongside JT. Her eyes skip to acknowledge Malcolm briefly, and she says, “Hey, Bright,” before nodding at Gil to report, “Good news: we finally got a full name for our vic.”

Gil points to the situation room and grabs his coffee as they all file in.

“Powell, tell us about our victim,” he says, perching on the edge of the cabinets and cradling his mug between his fingers.

Dani nods towards the photo. “Turns out, Greg isn't a first name. The victim’s name was Timothy Greg. He was single, lived alone in Bed-Stuy. He worked in accounting at DynaVector, the pharmaceutical start-up that just went public.”

Malcolm grabs up a marker for the board and erases the “John Doe” to write in the victim’s name. “They were just in the news, weren’t they?” 

“BuzzFeed dropped the bomb that their new CEO was planning on jacking up prices on patented medications,” JT says. “No one knows who leaked it.”

“Which brings me to our next ID,” Dani says. “Our stalker, the guy on the tape, that’s Robert Allen. He’s a former cop out of Jersey who’s been working as a P.I. for the past three years. Everyone I talked to said he was legit. Left the force to take care of his ailing mother, no red flags. I’ve left a message, and we’re waiting for a call back.”

“Your turn, kid,” Gil says, and sips at his coffee.

He repeats his latest theory for the team, running Dani through the same example.

“A famous band? I don’t know,” she says, “Beyoncé.”

“Beyoncé is an artist, not a band,” JT points out.

“Correction, she’s a queen,” Dani shoots back.

JT holds his hands up in defeat, and Malcolm quirks a smile. “The point stands. You’ve immediately thought of one of the most famous musical acts you know.”

“Makes sense to me, so our guy did that to the bodies ‘cause they’re famous,“ JT says, then mumbles under his breath. “That’s so sad, play Despacito.” 

Dani stifles a laugh.

“I’m sure if I had gotten that reference, it would’ve been very funny,” Gil says. He rises to his feet and checks his watch. “JT, you’re with me. Let’s go pay DynaVector a visit and give them the news. Dani, take Malcolm for a little field trip across the bridge and while you’re in the neighborhood, hit up Swell Dive for some sisig tacos. You’re gonna love ‘em, kid.”

* * *

In a building in Bed-Stuy, the landlord lets them inside the victim’s apartment. Moments after Dani has cleared the rooms, Malcolm receives a call.

“Edrisa, hi, what’s going on?”

“Malcolm, it’s me. Hi! I just put some desiccated fingers in a solution to rehydrate for prints, and it reminded me that I had wanted to call to see if you were planning to go to the party next week.”

Malcolm doesn’t bother trying to figure out how Edrisa got from point A to point B. He shakes his head at Dani to indicate it isn’t important and transfers the phone to the ear further away from her, lowering his voice a bit to respond. “I hadn’t given it much thought, honestly. Usually I, um, don’t socialize in that crowd when I’m working a case. Actually, I’m out in the field with Dani right now. Can we continue this conversation later?”

“Sure. Of course. Later… gator. You can text me, if that’s easier.”

“Will do, thanks. Bye.”

Dani doesn’t say anything as she starts flipping through paperwork and mail stacked near a laptop, but he does catch her glancing at him curiously. He tucks his phone away and gloves up to inspect the coat closet. 

“So, you and her got a thing, now?” Dani asks. “Not judging.”

He pulls a box off the shelf that turns out to be full of electro stims and a tangle of cheap restraints. “What’s there to judge?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Dani says. Her expression turns pinched. She starts going through file drawers, and Malcolm goes over to help. The victim’s files are fairly well-organized. “Sorry, I just don’t always get her, you know?”

“She’s unique,” Malcolm agrees. He skims a few pages of reports filled with columns of figures. They’re all various risk assessments for personal investments, nothing to do with DynaVector. “Sometimes—okay, most of the time—her jokes don’t land quite the way I think she intends them to, but then again, mine rarely do, either.”

“Doesn’t stop you from trying, though, does it.”

Malcolm glances over to find Dani giving him a teasing smirk of the sort he’s more accustomed to seeing on Ainsley.

“From what I’ve seen, Edrisa is different outside of work. Not living-a-secret-double-life different, but she has a community that she fits in with. And when she isn’t, um—”

“Drooling over you?”

“I was going to say ‘preoccupied’, but yes, when she’s less flustered, she’s a fun conversationalist.”

“I get it. I mean, I’m different around my friends. I think we all are,” Dani says. There’s more to that than she’s ready or willing to say, but Malcolm appreciates the effort.

“She and I have a lot in common, a great deal more than I thought. It might surprise you.”

“Bright, at this point, nothing surprises me when it comes to you.”

Turning up nothing in the office-slash-living room, they move to the bedroom. Pulling open the closet in here reveals rows of meticulously sorted fetish gear: paddles, canes and floggers, clamps and clovers, vampire gloves, more electro stims, heavy-duty restraints that fully lock, the list goes on.

“Guy has a bigger collection than you.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Your weapons, Bright, not the stuff on your bed,” Dani says, but it’s too late because he can feel the tinge of heat in his ears. “That’s… a lot.”

“Well, Mistress V did say he was a pain slut,” Malcolm says, aiming for nonchalance as he starts checking for a fire safe or any hidden compartment where the victim may have stored anything valuable.

Dani flicks the tail of one of the floggers and gnaws on her bottom lip as she gives him a _look_. “Mistress V, huh? So, you go to those kinds of parties.” 

“I, um–”

Her nose wrinkles and she knocks her elbow into his. “Didn’t I just say nothing surprises me?”

“Maybe don’t let the rumor mill in on this one?”

“Pretty sure even the boss suspects you’re a little freaky-deaky, Bright, and _everyone_ knows Edrisa’s kinky as hell. Still, I won’t say a word.”

Finding nothing else in the bedroom, they do a quick check of the small bathroom then move to the kitchen. Malcolm takes to sorting the trash—which, after sitting for a few days full of takeout boxes, is pretty ripe—while Dani works through the cabinets. He holds his breath as he sifts through it. He comes up with a couple crumpled bits of paper that are miraculously not tainted by anything too disgusting and smooths them out carefully on the counter.

One is a receipt, probably for one of the takeout boxes, while the other is more interesting. “I’ve got a phone number here,” he says, and peels off his glove to pull out his phone.

“That wasn’t on the victim’s phone records. He only called three numbers in the past month and all of them were local.”

Malcolm raises his brows as he dials. “Could be nothing,” he says, hitting the speaker.

It takes a few rings, but a woman picks up. “Hello?”

“Hi. This is,” he waves a hand around as he searches his brain for an alias, wincing as he ends up saying, “Eddie.”

There’s a sound of papers rustling, like the woman is looking something up. “Eddie, is this about the admissions thing?”

“No,” he says. “It’s about DynaVector. I got your number from my buddy, Tim.”

“Tim... right, of course, the accountant,” she says. “Sorry, I’m on deadline.”

‘Reporter,’ Dani mouths silently and Malcolm nods.

“It’s fine. Actually, I’m going to hand the phone over to Detective Dani Powell of the NYPD Major Crimes division. She’ll give you her badge number so you can confirm her identity.”

“Major Crimes?”

He passes the phone to Dani, and she takes it from there. 

* * *

Malcolm and Dani are finishing up the last of the takeout they’d picked up from Swell Dive when Gil and JT return to the station.

“What, none for me?” JT says, eyeballing the boxes.

“At your desk and you’re welcome,” Dani says and glances to Gil. “You, too, boss.”

The both of them are clearly hungry as they beeline for the boxes before returning to get an update on how things went. 

JT delivers a chef’s kiss to the heavens as he cracks open his takeout and tells them that, unsurprisingly, they had stalled out at DynaVector. They made it as far as a bulldog of a personal assistant to the CFO, who only went so far as to confirm the victim had been a model employee and any further information would require a warrant.

“Well,” Dani says, as she wipes her hands on a napkin, “we found a BuzzFeed reporter’s number in the victim’s trash, but according to her, the guy was only a lead, not a source.

“The private investigator, on the other hand, called us back finally,” she continues. She slides her notepad over and flips to the page where she’d recorded the conversation. “The guy who hired him to tail the victim was another DynaVector employee. Wanna guess who?”

“The CFO, Howard Moscone?” JT asks.

“Bingo,” Dani says.

“Moscone was interested in any information that could be potentially damaging to our victim’s reputation,” Malcolm says. “Like, for example, an interest in the kink community.”

“As if the fetish clubs in this city aren’t packed with lawyers and stock brokers,” Gil remarks between bites of cold taco. 

Malcolm keeps his eyebrows down despite wondering what exactly Gil thinks he knows about New York’s fetish clubs. “Be that as it may, as soon as our P.I. handed over the file outlining the victim’s personal life, he said Moscone seemed satisfied.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Dani says, “We think Moscone might have dumped stock ahead of the news and Greg found out. He may have lured Greg to the crime scene under false pretenses in order to threaten or blackmail him and things went sour.”

“Moscone’s also a big game hunter. Dani found photos of him online posing with some of his kills, so he knows his way around a knife.”

Gil nods. “Bright, why don’t you go home and get some rest? I know you didn’t sleep much last night. Dani, start digging up whatever’s publicly available around Moscone’s financials and I’ll make a few calls to see if we can get a warrant for the guy’s phone records. If he called the victim directly, I want to know.”

Malcolm doesn’t really want to go home, but he’s trying to learn to pick his battles. He even makes an attempt at a nap. Although he never quite dozes off, laying down for a while does help ease the tiredness behind his eyes. He spends a good two hours just laying there, mind wandering between the case and Edrisa and whether not he ought to go to that next play party.

If he asked, she’d bring the needles. He could fold himself over a stool and let her work a pattern all along his back, or maybe do a row of corset piercings. He still has a spool of ribbon to match his eyes that the last needle top he played with regularly had liked to use on him. Or maybe she’d enjoy tying him up in a pattern of knots and leading him around just like Mistress V had for anyone to use.

He smiles at the thought, arousal stirring his cock.

If sleep isn’t going to happen, he could do the next best thing and go for a quick hit of serotonin from an orgasm. Malcolm undoes his cuffs and is about to go digging around in his toy chest when the door buzzer sounds.

“Mother, if that’s you, I had a new key cut for you. It’s up here with me, right now.”

“Uh, this is not your mom. It’s me, Edrisa! I was just in the neighborhood and… no, that’s not entirely true, Dani is out here with me, although we are in the neighborhood—obviously since we’re standing out here,” she says, her voice tinny over the speaker. He catches a quick bark of laughter which must be Dani, followed by a muffled prompt of, “Did you want to get some drinks with us…?” and Edrisa repeating the question into the intercom.

Smiling, Malcolm bites his lip. Spending more time with the two of them promises to provide a much better distraction and a longer lasting high than just getting himself off. He presses the speaker button with his thumb. “I’ll be right down.”

He then promptly begins to panic. Is this another date? Is it okay that he’s not dressed to go out and in a pair of jeans and one of the soft, stretchy tops he usually does yoga in? Or is such a casual look in actuality more normal than what he usually leaves the loft in? He turns to Sunshine who always reminds him that in the end, people are not really any different than birds and need food, water, companionship, and things to keep them from being bored.

He takes a deep breath and tells her—and by extension, himself—that he’s going to grab his wallet and a jacket, put on some shoes, and not keep Dani and Edrisa waiting any longer than he needs to.

When he emerges onto the street, Dani gives him a once over and a faint nod that probably means approval. She motions down the block and starts leading the way, letting him and Edrisa trail behind side-by-side.

“Just happened to be in the neighborhood, hm?” he prompts. “I’m guessing this was Dani’s idea?”

“She said she wanted to get to know the two of us better. Outside of work.”

Malcolm slings his hands in the pocket of his coat. “That’s nice of her.”

“I know. Isn’t it?”

He catches Edrisa glancing more than once over at him, and not so much in a can’t-stop-looking-at-your-face way, but as if she’s also trying to gauge whether or not this counts as a date. He’s working up the nerve to offer her his hand to hold—is _that_ normal?—when Dani glances back to make sure they’re still following and ducks into an open door.

The bar is lined with cul-de-sacs of benches around low tables, most of them crowded with twenty-somethings and more than one birthday celebration. Dani leads them directly to the back, where an open-air patio with picnic tables is buzzing.

Malcolm immediately spots someone who looks like they wouldn’t mind asking their friends to make room to share a table, but then he spots someone waving Dani over.

“Frankie, these are the folks from work I was telling you about,” Dani says, dropping her coat onto the open seat beside a petite woman with hair done up in twists. She does hasty introductions as Edrisa and Malcolm squeeze into the bench on the other side and then holds out her hand. “Gimme your card, rich boy, drinks are on you tonight.”

Dani quirks her lips as Malcolm hands it over without complaint. “Next time, they’re on me,” she says, giving a little salute with the card before leaving the three of them to get to know one another.

“So how, long have you known Dani?” Malcolm asks, leaning in without hesitation. Small talk with strangers is far easier than small talk with people he wants to be friends with.

“Since we were in diapers,” Frankie says, equally at ease with striking up a conversation in a way that Dani most definitely isn’t. She launches immediately into a story about the two of them getting into trouble in the second grade, and Malcolm grins.

After grilling him briefly about society gossip, which he can’t actually comment on since he avoids it like the plague, she dives right in to asking Edrisa about the grossest crime scene she’s ever had to work. Dani returns with a bundle of four mason jar glasses carried expertly between her fingers just as Edrisa is saying the words “putrefied to the point of being soup.”

“Topic change,” Dani declares, taking her seat. “Ho, you can satisfy your morbid curiosity some other time.”

“Bitch, I will,” Frankie says, and breaks into an easy laugh before swapping numbers with Edrisa.

“Frozen margaritas, cause we basic,” Dani says, parceling out the drinks. “Guava for my girl. Mango for me. And for you two, peach or strawberry. Pick your poison.”

“Oh, Malcolm should have the peach.”

“Yeah, he should,” Frankie says, giving Edrisa a lewd wink. Dani’s cheeks pinken slightly, and she rolls her eyes, lips thinning into a line.

“This was a bad idea. Can we go back to talking about decomp?” she says, without any real regret as she plucks the cherry out of her drink.

Frankie hooks her arm through Dani’s, and blows her a kiss. “I’m pure bad ideas, and that’s why you love me.“

From there, the conversation swerves back towards morbid, but only in the context of horror films. Frankie and Edrisa start rattling off obscure favorites with Dani chiming in every so often with the sort of opinions that speaks to being an expert in the topic purely by proximity. Malcolm smiles around his straw as Edrisa bounces in her seat and starts ticking off on her fingers the movies that have the most realistic gore. He can’t say he’ll ever want to see any of the things she’s listing, but there’s always something wonderful about seeing someone who truly loves a thing get enthusiastic about it.

Dani leaves briefly to get a second round, and when she returns, they’re still chattering away. Frankie hardly pauses for breath when Dani slides her a full glass. “Guess I don’t have a best friend anymore,” Dani says, her brow wrinkling with a mock frown.

“Seems that way,” Malcolm says.

“You hear that, Frankie? We aren’t BFFs anymore.”

“Shut your mouth, we’re gonna have side-by-side graves, and you know it,” Frankie says, not even looking her way before grabbing Edrisa’s hand and pulling her into a brand new conversation about franchise monsters.

Dani smirks as she lifts her glass to Malcolm. He hastily finishes a sip to clink it, and she smiles, faint but genuine. Something warm and wonderful spreads in Malcolm’s chest. For someone who trusts people about as easily as he does, it’s a privilege to see this side of her.

They start and stop their own side conversation, but no topics really catch, then out of the blue, she says, “Must be hard not knowing if people really like you for you.”

“I studied behavioral sciences for a reason,” Malcolm says. He looks up briefly at the haze of the night sky. “Besides trying to understand my father, I mean. It helps, but it isn’t foolproof.”

“I get it. Appearances are one thing, expectations are another. Yours, other people’s… Folks treat me differently once they find out what I do for a living. And don’t even get me started on what guys think they know when they don’t know shit. You’re not excluded from that, but you get a pass.”

“Noted,” Malcolm says with a laugh. His smile lingers and he gestures at the table and the company. “Thanks. For this.”

“Yeah. I’m, um, glad you came out. I don’t really like to take work home with me, you know, or I try not to anyway, but I was making my own assumptions, and this was… nice,” Dani says. She stirs the dregs of her drink with her straw and glances towards the exit. “I better get home though, I have an early start tomorrow to train. I got a spot in the marathon again this year. And _Frankie_ can’t stay out all night, either, because she has a thesis to write.”

“Don’t fucking remind me!”

“Shut up and get your bag, you can nut over which monster is the most fuckable some other time,” Dani says.

“It’s the xenomorph from _Aliens,_ ” Frankie tells him in a stage whisper.

“She’s not wrong,” Edrisa agrees.

“Gross.” Dani rolls her eyes and reminds Malcolm to close up the tab as she gathers her coat and her friend.

When they’re gone, Edrisa scoots a little closer to him, hip and thigh pressing alongside his. “Guess it’s just the two of us, now,” she says. She examines her drink, the second one half-melted and looking a bit less appealing now with the bits of blended strawberry oddly reminiscent of flesh floating around. “Did you want to stay?”

“We could go back to my place?” Malcolm suggests. He gnaws on the corner of his thumb, gaze catching on where Edrisa’s fingers are slipping along the condensation of her glass. His thigh presses a little more firmly against hers.

“For sex?”

“If you’re interested.”

She leans in to murmur, “I am _so_ interested,” and her breath shivers against the shell of his ear before she adds, “I’ve gotten off approximately a dozen times thinking about what we did at the party.”

Malcolm shivers when she bites at his earlobe, sharp and hard enough to sting. “Me, too,” he says, a rush of lust burning away the light buzz from the tequila, and then they’re hastening out of the booth, practically tangled together as they go inside to close out the tab.

* * *

The walk back seems to take twice as long, especially once Edrisa hooks her hand at his elbow and lists against him, slowing them into more of a stroll. It’s nice, and of course his brain tries to sabotage the moment, bombarding him every step of the way with reasons why this is a bad idea: how he’s going to end up hurting her somehow; how it’ll backfire spectacularly, and he won’t be able to consult for the department anymore.

They turn the corner onto his block, and his mood has shifted enough that Edrisa asks, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he replies reflexively, then blows out a sigh. “Actually, yes. I’m second-guessing things—not because I want to—I just can’t always stop it. Kind of like the profiling.” He gestures at his temple, thoughts still scattered between a dozen terrible ways this could go.

“We really don’t have to do this if it’s weirding you out,” she says, her hand slipping down his arm to catch his. She turns and walks backward in front of him, her grip tight on his trembling fingers. “I mean, I’ll obviously be _devastated_ , but maybe we could just have fun at the party! Or, not, in case you… don’t want to go to that, either.” She scrunches her face in thought and takes a big heaving breath. “Holy fishsticks, I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. I just like you, Malcolm, and even if I _really_ —like really, really—want to sleep with you again, I want it to be fun.”

He smiles softly. “Me, too. On both counts,” he says, and stops when she’s about to lead them right past the entrance to his building. She stops equally abruptly, looking startled when he nods at the door. “This is me.”

“Right. Of course. I knew that, you see, because I have a memory like a fine mesh sieve. So, is this goodnight?”

He stares down at the join of their hands, where her grip is still strong and sure. He takes a deep breath, willing away the shaking in both his fingers and his resolve then raises his gaze to meet hers. “I don’t want it to be.”

“Oh my god, whew, me, neither,” she says, with a stuttering laugh. She steps in close to fish his keys out of his pocket and looks up at him as she makes a guess as to which of them is for the exterior door. “Hey! Unless you’re wanting anal again, can I ride your face?”

“I sort of am—I sort of always am—but why not both?” he says, plucking the keys back from her. The storm of his negative thoughts is already starting to blow past as he turns to unlock the door.

Edrisa sidles up behind him without an ounce of shame and goes up on her toes to grind her hips against his ass. “Both sounds great,” she murmurs lustily, and then they’re tumbling inside and scrambling up the steps.

They’re barely past the threshold when she’s shoving his coat off his shoulders and wriggling her hands down the back of his jeans. “Do you want anything specific, or are we winging it?” she asks, but as her eyes slide past him to take in the layout of his loft, her expression shifts. She cranes her neck to peer around his shoulder. “Wait, are those—”

“Actual flintlock pistols used by—”

“...a set of Quain’s _Anatomical Plates_ edited by the founder of modern dermatology?”

Malcolm’s mouth snaps shut. Of course Edrisa would be more interested in the rare medical books on his shelf than the weapons collection.

“They are. Did you want to look at them?”

“Most definitely, but after,” she says, attention snapping back to him like a rubber band. She grinds against him again, hands squeezing even tighter as he starts to get hard and she can feel it. “Bed?”

“Bed,” he agrees. He gently disengages her hands from his pants in order to return the favor: pushing her coat off and letting it puddle on the floor and sliding his arms around her to pick her up and let her wrap her legs around his waist.

She takes handfuls of his hair as he carries her over to the bed and drops her down on it, immediately going to unfasten her pants and peel them down to her thighs so he can get a look at her before helping remove her shoes and socks. She’s wet, soaked straight through the cotton of her underwear. His mouth floods, remembering the taste of her, and she pulls off her top as he’s tugging at the hem of her skinny jeans to ease them free.

As soon as Malcolm strips his shirt off, Edrisa’s foot lands in the center of his chest, preventing him from tumbling forward to just bury his face between her thighs. “I want you on your back, just like last time, okay?” she says, and the look on her face makes his cock throb.

It’s that same look she’d given him at the party. The one that promises that she knows precisely what she wants to do with him. That she’s going to take him apart, piece-by-piece.

He strokes his fingertips over the soft skin atop her foot and nods. “Yes,” he says, with a split-second hesitation because he wants to call her by a title she likes. When she eases her foot back and scoots over, he tosses the restraint to the floor and crawls onto the bed to stretch himself out in the middle. “You’re a top. Do you have a title?”

“You mean like Mistress?”

Malcolm nods. He sucks his bottom lip in, hopeful.

“I’ve never really dominated anyone,” she says as she shimmies out of her panties. She rises up onto her knees and looks down at him as she deftly straddles his chest. “At least not like that.”

“Okay, no problem,” he says, ready to drop it.

“Oh, wait, I take that back... I _do_ have a title,” she says, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. “Whenever I’m in a medical fetish scene, my partners call me Doctor. Obviously that’s also my real title, but do you want to use that?”

Medical has never been his thing, for obvious reasons, but he’s always had a strange fascination for it. Honestly, having someone other than his father be the first person he thinks of at the word ‘doctor’ is powerfully tempting. “I would love to, Doctor,” Malcolm says. Even though they’re not negotiating or scening, he keeps his gaze on her face, admiring the way her inky hair fans around her face as she looks down at him.

“If I accidentally start roleplaying or using too much terminology as you call me that, just remind me, okay,” Edrisa says. He nods and she slips a hand into his hair, fingers rubbing hard against his scalp to urge him to tip his head back.

“Yes, Doctor,” he breathes, his eyes fluttering shut. He can practically taste her already, and he opens his mouth expectantly, tongue rolling out in invitation. She moves up to bracket his face with her thighs, but when she doesn’t lower herself down onto his face immediately he tries to raise his head to meet her.

She doesn’t quite let him, and he opens his eyes to see her studying him. “Do you like that?” she asks.

“Yes, but I really want to get my tongue on you.”

For a moment, it seems like Edrisa is going to play at being a domme like Mistress V and keep a strong fist in his hair until he’s whimpering and begging her for it, but then her face cracks into a smile. “I know. God, Bright, I love how into oral you are, too,” she says, and sinks down to brush herself against his mouth.

Malcolm moans as Edrisa rubs herself against him, so slick she’s practically dripping even before his tongue laps wetly along her vulva. He swallows to get the salt-taste of her thick in his mouth, the tight nub of her hard clit dragging over his tongue and lips as she rides his face. He licks at her as he can, trying at times to catch enough of her folds to suck on when she slows to grind against him, and then, eventually, she parks herself on his chin so he can close his lips around her clit.

“Oh—Oh god, that feels so good,” she says, her thighs shivering against his ears as her hips twitch and she fucks herself into his mouth.

He’s kept his hands clutched into the bedding this whole time, but without cuffs restraining him, he can’t resist the urge to touch her anymore. He brings his hands up to her ass, holding her in place against him like she’s a vessel and he’s drinking from her. He moans as he feels her clit get harder yet, and he eases on the pressure to flick his tongue there until she’s keening.

Edrisa has both hands buried in his hair, and she starts to rock her hips, moving against him in a slow, rolling rhythm. He swallows desperately, his mouth overflowing with saliva and her juices. He could do this for _hours_ and lose himself by drowning in her, and his hips lift into the air, fucking up against nothing as he aches for a touch on his trapped cock. He could get a hand on himself—he hasn’t been told not to—but that would mean taking his hands away from her.

“Malcolm, I’m so cl—oh, fuck, I’m going to come,” Edrisa tells him, and he clutches at her harder, mouth sealing to her again so her clit is hard on the flat of his tongue. Without his fingers inside her, he wants to _feel_ it.

Her thighs vise around his head when he gets her over the edge, a shudder going through her as her clit throbs against his tongue. He groans loudly, and as the tension begins to drain out of her muscles, he sucks and licks and lets his lips drag against every slick bit of flesh he can reach.

She leaves his face _sopping_ , pulling away to tumble into the space beside him with her breath heaving in her chest. He wipes his face off on his arm and rolls to follow, slithering down to drop a line of kisses down from her navel until he’s nuzzling his lips at the joint of her thigh. “A little more, Doctor?” he murmurs, not really waiting for an answer before he’s trailing the point of his tongue along the creases of her deliciously wet, delicate skin.

Edrisa answers by spreading her legs wider and sliding her hands down her body. She toys with her clit as he presses his face against her, tongue thrusting in as deep as he can reach until the scrape against his teeth leaves it feeling raw. He slides a finger into her and drags kisses against her thighs, licking his way back to the plush softness of her labia. He adds another finger—his own body clenching when she goes tight around them—and curves them to stroke inside her until she’s shaking and coming a second time.

He’s ready to keep going, to nose away the hand pressed protectively over her clit and land butterfly kisses there until she’s ready for a third, or a fourth, or however many orgasms she’ll let him give her. Grinning, he rubs his lips across her knuckles, intending to do just that, when his phone on the nightstand buzzes.

He attempts to ignore it, working his tongue between her fingers, but Edrisa sits up, weight propping on her wrists behind her. “Do you want to answer that?” she says, and he glances up to find her looking delicious disheveled, wisps of hair scattering every which way and her glasses slightly askew.

“Not this time. I don’t really want to.” It’s a little late for phone privileges, but it’s probably just Martin wanting to hear an update on whether or not he has a new theory and ready to offer annoyingly helpful advice whether or not he does.

“But shouldn’t you at least check who it is?”

“Probably.” With a groan, Malcolm pushes himself up onto his wrist and squints at the name on the screen.

_Gil Arroyo_.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck, okay,” Malcolm stretches out to catch the phone. He fumbles it into his grasp and answers hastily before it can go to voicemail. “Gil, hi. Hello. What’s up?”

He makes a face. It’s not as if Gil will know just by the sound of his voice that he’s just spent a glorious amount of time between Edrisa’s legs—is still there, technically, with a painful erection straining against his zip—but logic does nothing to slow the wild racing of his heart. He plucks a hair off his tongue and suppresses a shiver when Edrisa lays her hand lightly atop his head.

“We just nabbed Howard Moscone trying to catch a private jet. Get your ass down to the station if you want to be there when we question him.”

“I’ll be right there,” Malcolm says, not able to mask the regret from his voice. He hangs up with a groan and gives his dick a hard squeeze before rolling off the bed and shucking his jeans.

“Did you want to come before you—hah—go?” Edrisa asks, gaze following him as he pulls a fresh shirt from his chest of drawers. “You could even fuck me, if you want. I probably won’t come again quickly enough, but based on how aroused you are,” she sizes him up with a vaguely clinical eye and chuckles softly to herself, “I’d expect you’re on a hair trigger and it’d hardly take anything to get you to ejaculate.”

He glances over in time to see her fixing her glasses and smoothing her hair back into place as she hastens to quantify the statement: “That's not to say you’re a two-pump chump! I only meant that stimulation of the... You know what, Bright?” she says, aiming a finger gun at him. “You just tell me what you want to do.”

He can’t say he isn’t tempted at the thought of sinking into her when she’s this wet and just going for a quick and dirty orgasm, but—

“Would you be willing to wait and fuck me properly when I get back? It’ll probably be an hour, maybe two, so if you’d rather just head home, I understand.” Just because sleep isn’t his friend doesn’t mean everyone can operate on only a few hours a night.

“I am so willing to wait. I can’t promise I won’t fall asleep, but by then? I will definitely be ready to come again. Do you mind if I poke through your toys?”

“Not at all,” he says. He disappears into the closet briefly to grab a suit and nods at the chest. “My favorites are in here, so feel free to dig through. I have a few more in the right hand set of drawers in the closet where I keep my leather gear.”

In the time it takes for him to wash his hands and face, Edrisa has slipped back into her bralette and panties. She’s sitting up against the headboard reading something on her phone, and as he finishes getting dressed, it occurs to him to make sure she knows she’s welcome to anything in his loft.

She listens attentively as he says, “Feel free to check out the anatomy books or anything else on the shelves, too. Some of the weapons in the case are very sharp, so be careful if you want to look at those.” After he does up his tie, he presses a knee into the bed and leans in to brush his mouth at the corner of hers. “I’m already looking forward to coming home,” he says, his voice roughening with desire before he pulls away, “but, if for whatever reason you need to leave early, there’s a key on the counter you can use to lock up.”

“Got it. Now you go get the bad guy!”


	4. a real first

The suspect is alone in the interrogation room, sitting calmly upright with his hands loosely clasped together on the scratched surface of the metal table. Moscone is tall and slim, sporting a neatly trimmed beard shot through with white. Impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit and with not a hair out of place, he looks like he’s come straight from the boardroom and not the airport tarmac.

“He hasn’t asked for a lawyer?” Malcolm steps closer to the glass as he hunts for any signs of stress in the man’s posture.

“Not yet,” Gil says. “He brushed his assistant off when she suggested the idea.”

“More like swatted her down like a fly,” JT comments. “The woman’s probably half his age and way smarter than he is.”

Moscone seems calm. Bored even. No lawyer doesn’t scream innocence—far from it. It’s also possible he’s delusional to the point of refusing to believe he’d killed a man. If he treats his assistant poorly, at least she’ll have a reason to give up information on him.

“You okay, kid?”

“Hm?” Malcolm glances over.

“You look a little peaky.”

Does he? Maybe it’s that the whole way over he’d been bouncing between thinking about the case and wondering what Edrisa would want to fuck him with. “I had just gotten into bed before you called.”

Gil’s face softens and he gives Malcolm’s neck a firm squeeze. “Sorry to drag you back out here. Let’s hope this is the guy.”

“Boss, you ready?”

“Wait. Let me and JT go in together,” Malcolm says, formulating a plan of attack. He strips off his jacket and tie, rolling up the cuffs of his shirt then removing his watch as he explains, “He’s more likely to underestimate the two of us based on age and rank.” Malcolm tousles his hair a bit to make himself look that much younger. “JT, can you give me the file? You start him off, and when I drop the folder, make sure to apologize to him.”

When Gil nods to give the go ahead, JT passes Malcolm the folder. He follows the Detective into the interrogation room and takes up a post against the wall with the folder held in front of his chest. Youthful and subordinate, hardly worth a man like Moscone’s time.

“I’m Detective Tarmel, and this is my associate, Malcolm Bright. We just have a few questions for you Mr. Moscone, if that’s all right with you.”

“You pulled me off my jet for this, so how about we just get on with it.” Moscone gestures for JT to continue and leans back in the chair. He crosses one knee over the other, still calm, still casual.

“Do you know a man named Timothy Greg?”

“Only because my assistant mentioned him to me today. He’s a financial analyst, I believe.”

“He worked in your division,” JT says, gesturing for Malcolm to come close. “And he turned up dead the other day.”

Malcolm brings the file over, fumbling it as he puts it on the table. The photos spill out towards Moscone, who slaps a hand down on them to keep them from sliding onto the floor. He gives Malcolm a dirty look, as if he’d fire him on the spot if it were up to him.

“Sorry about that, sir,” JT says, helping gather up the scatter of images. 

“Is this him?” Moscone says, pushing more photos back towards the center of the table. He’s not trying to shy away from them, he probably simply dislikes mess. He picks one up that shows the deceased’s face and doesn’t appear the least bit rattled at such a grisly crime scene. Malcolm hides a frown. Moscone had seen Greg’s file that the P.I. had put together. Is he just that good at hiding his reaction? Moscone sets the picture back down in line with the others. “So, he’s the victim the news is calling the Broken Lotus?”

“He’s also the man you hired a private investigator to follow.”

“DynaVector has been in the news lately, too, as I’m sure you know. I hired a firm to discover the source of a very damaging leak.” Moscone still seems nonplussed.

Moscone could easily murder someone, it’s clear, but with his neat-as-a-pin appearance and his preference for order, he’d probably have left a tidier crime scene. And then there’s the victim’s potential defensive wounds. When Edrisa had demonstrated the likely angle of attack during their dinner out, she’d posited that it was close. Would Greg have let a man like Moscone get near him if it was immediately obvious the man wasn’t there for a scene?

“Your assistant told us the same thing, but the investigator who was following the victim, he wasn’t working for a firm or paid for with the company card. He was paid in cash, and phone records show you called him multiple times,” JT says, punching a finger against the file folder. He leans forward, an aggressive intensity creeping into his tone. “Phone records also show you called the victim on the night of his death.”

Moscone’s attention immediately jumps to Malcolm, as if he wants to ask him to verify that information.

“You’re a big game hunter, right? The sort that butchers the animal afterwards to feed the locals?” Malcolm says, gaze now fixed keenly on the man. He pulls up Moscone’s social media on his phone and shows JT the shot of Moscone and two women standing beside a trophy kill. Malcolm flips one of the printed photos on the table around, one that clearly shows the separation between limb and torso. “So, that means you know how to handle a knife.”

Now, Moscone looks spooked. He pushes his chair back, trying to put distance between him, the photos, and JT mercilessly staring him down. “I think I’d like to speak to a lawyer.”

He didn’t ask for a lawyer, specifically, only said he thought he’d like to speak to one, and JT’s clearly ready to press him and try to get him to break, but Malcolm’s certain now that he’s not the killer. He’s probably a sociopath, but not a murderer of anything he can’t stuff and hang in his trophy room. The woman standing beside him, however… Malcolm touches JT lightly on the shoulder, nods at the door, and says, “Let him make the call.”

JT presses his lips together in a line. He sucks a breath in through his teeth before he scoops up the photos and tucks them into the file. He taps the corner of the folder against the table as he stands, looming briefly over Moscone.

“Can you ask my assistant to bring me my phone?” Moscone says. He sniffs, trying to regain a bit of composure. “I never keep it on me. Ruins the line of my suit.”

After they exit, Malcolm turns immediately to JT. “You heard him. He never carries his phone, and he probably didn’t even look at that file from the P.I.,” he says. “He might’ve still dumped stock, but I’d check her financials, too. She’s probably the one who went to the press, and either Greg found out, or she got worried and went looking for a patsy.”

“I put that together between you showing me the world’s worst Instagram account and the way the guy looked at you like you’d have some idea of what was on his day calendar. Nice play, bro. Good thing we’ve been sitting on her, just in case,” JT says, clapping Malcolm on the shoulder and pushing past him. He’s already pulling out his cuffs as he heads for the waiting area.

Malcolm’s still smiling when Gil appears with his watch and jacket in hand. He’s definitely growing on the guy. “Guess you can go home and get a bit of shut eye, huh, kid?”

Malcolm takes his things back gratefully, slipping into his jacket and keeping his gaze on the watch as he fixes it back on his wrist. Sleep is just about the last thing on his mind right now.

“Fingers crossed I’ll, uh, eventually get some rest,” he says and hopes there’s nothing written on his face when Gil chuckles, gives him a little pat on the back, and tells him to get going.

* * *

The lights are dim when he returns home to his loft. Sunshine is asleep on her perch, tucked into the shadowy corner. Edrisa is nowhere to be seen.

He wonders if she’d gone home after all until he spots her toes peeking out from the other side of the couch. He approaches with heavier steps than he might otherwise, hoping not to startle her.

She’s short enough to be fully stretched out on the cushions with the heel of one foot propped on the arm. Her glasses are on the coffee table next to a stack of rare books pulled from the shelves.

“Hey,” he says, voice raised just above a whisper.

She stirs and stretches even further, limbs reaching like a cat as she opens her eyes. “Hey,” she says back at him. She looks different without her glasses, and for a second he sits with the idea that this is what she’d look like if he woke up beside her in the morning.

“You need a ride home?” he asks. “Or a blanket?”

“Mmm, no,” she murmurs. “Just taking a little power nap. I’m a napper. Picked up the habit in med school. I sneak a bit of sleep during my lunch hours, too.” She sits up and wrinkles her nose as she reaches for her glasses. “Although, if we’re still going to have sex, do you have a spare toothbrush? That margarita left me with some pretty disgusting booze breath.”

Malcolm laughs. “We are, and I do. Let me get cleaned up first, and I’ll leave you one by the sink.”

While he’s in the bathroom, he brushes his own teeth for good measure, checking his reflection to ensure he looks fine and internally berating himself for it. Of all people, he ought to feel confident that Edrisa is attracted to him, but there’s always that tiny niggling doubt about _why_. Maybe she’s been lying to him this whole time. Maybe she’s going to log on to her forums tomorrow and tell them she’d slept with Malcolm Whitly again and that he’s a masochistic freak. Maybe she’s going to sell a story to the tabloids. 

He braces his hands on the edge of the sink and reminds himself that those things could all be true. They’re also highly unlikely. The most likely read on the situation is he’s nervous and excited and hasn’t felt like this about someone in a long time. A woman who is as smart as he is, who is beautiful and funny, and who is waiting right now for him to stop being paralyzed by his trust issues and let her fuck him like they both want.

His card this morning had been about moving on, but he hasn’t forgotten the affirmation from when he’d been kiss-marked and tender. “I see myself as a gift to my friends,” he tells himself. “I am a gift. My trust is a gift. I am going to put it and myself in Edrisa’s hands, and I believe that, just like last time, she will treat these gifts well.” The nervous doubt doesn’t disappear, but aligning his thoughts still helps.

“Here goes nothing,” he tells himself, hum of anxiety fading into the background behind the stronger buzz of anticipation as he exits. “All yours.”

“I left some things on the bed!” she says, disappearing into the bathroom. 

“Cool,” he says to the air, heading over curiously to see what she’d picked out.

Atop the slightly rumpled covers, Edrisa has found and laid out a sex blanket, a harness, a row of three compatible toys in a range of sizes, a vibrating prostate massager and one made of stainless steel, and a vibrating plug. He can’t quite decide if Edrisa intends the toys to be chosen between or if she plans to use each and every one of them on him.

He’s still turning that over in his head after he’s put away his watch and hung his suit on the valet stand to air out. It’s ambitious, but he wouldn’t say no.

“So, I definitely want to peg you again,” Edrisa announces, stepping up into his bedroom with a little hop. She gestures at the spread of toys with the same motion she uses to introduce specimens in her lab. “I wasn’t sure which you’d like best. The pack-and-play I was wearing last time was on the smaller side, but given your pelvic control and obvious experience I thought you might enjoy something bigger.”

“I’d like you to choose,” he says. He definitely has a favorite of the three, but he wants to be on the receiving end of the one she finds the most appealing. The one that _she_ wants him to feel.

“Okay, let’s see.” Edrisa crawls onto the bed and sits on her heels in front of them, picking up the one on the left which is the largest and his favorite. She holds it out, the length and girth making it droop downwards. In a harness on a woman her size, it’d hang down more than halfway to her knee. “Too heavy,” she decides, then moves to the next which is more the size of what she’d fucked him with last time. That particular toy is good for getting him off quickly, the shape of it perfect for when he’s on his knees. “Hm, too firm,” she determines, and then plucks the one in the middle and gives it a wobble. “This one though… this one is _just_ right. Hey… does this make me Goldilocks?”

“I hope that doesn’t make me Baby Bear,” Malcolm says, gesturing to himself. “I can’t pass for that.”

She laughs and scoops up the harness, falling onto her back to kick off her underwear and wriggle into it.

“What about the others?”

“A little appetizer before the main event,” she says, tugging the straps to secure the harness snugly to her hips. “Let’s use the plug. I already downloaded the app and paired it to my phone.”

His skin going tight with anticipation, Malcolm puts the other toys away in the chest and slides open the bedside drawer to get out a bottle of lube. “Do you want to slick me up again or...?”

“No, you can do it. I’ll watch.”

Between dreams and fantasy, he’s seemingly considered all the ways the team might treat him in bed, and before the party, Edrisa had always been the wildcard—he’d rarely had a chance to observe her interacting without noticing him, and as soon as her attention turned to him, it generally devolved into some level of flirting or fixation. In this moment, there’s no fumbling, no one else to be put off by the hungry look she gives him, just her unabashed excitement to match his own.

He pushes a knee into the bed to lean in and meet her, to kiss her first and let her bite and suck at his lips again. She hums a moan, and her avid gaze turns heavy when he pulls away and rises on his knees to reach down and slick himself up.

The plug isn’t particularly large, so he simply eases himself down on it, wriggling a bit when the widest part stretches his rim. His eyes shut as it slips past the bit of resistance to settle inside him, weighted and familiar.

“I thought that since you weren’t ready to be done with your mouth earlier, that you’d like to suck on something for a bit,” Edrisa tells him, snuggling up against the pile of pillows stacked against the headboard. She holds her phone in front of her with both hands, thumbs poised and ready to turn on the vibrator.

A nervous thrill starts up low in Malcolm’s belly wondering how strong the first buzzing pulse will be. He finds himself clenching down, his core drawing tight from more than the act of crawling up the bed to drag a lick up the length of the toy. He’d rather have his mouth on her directly to taste her again and suck her clit, but the way she looks down at him makes him moan as he catches the dildo with his tongue and wraps his lips around it.

He closes his eyes, focusing on the task as if she can feel every lick of his tongue and the suction of his cheeks. The bob of his head makes the base nudge rhythmically against her and eventually her breathing changes. By then he’s forgotten entirely about the plug in his ass, and when it ramps up with a high whine, his whole body jolts, wet mouth pulling off her dick with a gasp.

“F-fuck,” he says, the sensation nearly overwhelming. The sharp buzz echoes through him all the way to the tip of his dick. He grabs handfuls of the bedding as he forgets to breathe, only gulping down lungfuls when Edrisa dials it down to a low, pulsating throb.

Malcolm drops his head, cheek laying against her thigh as he catches his breath. She doesn’t quite let him, angling the toy down to smack against his cheek even as she ramps up the strength of the vibration. It’s still pulsating as he works to get his mouth stuffed full with silicone again, but each subsequent throb gets stronger and stronger, and he can’t manage any finesse with his mouth when he can hardly keep his hips from uselessly fucking the air.

“Doctor, I want to taste you,” he says, the whine in his voice as sharp as the whine sending fireworks up his spine. “Please.”

“Okay, but just a little,” Edrisa says, sliding down into the pillows and raising her knees to allow Malcolm to push her thighs apart.

He brushes a kiss at the base of the toy, down over the leather trailing along the inside of her thigh, and then licks her open again. She’s not as wet this time, so he coaxes the slickness out of her with slow, tonguing kisses, his breath shunting back at him thick with the taste of her whenever she turns up the vibe so high he can’t do anything but shake between her legs.

Edrisa’s an excellent judge of how far she can push it without sending him over the edge, but eventually, he’s back to simply being face down, clutching at the blanket and gasping, no room for anything in his head except the cascade of pleasure as she changes the settings of the vibrator at her whim.

When there’s a pause that lasts more than a second or two, he feels her fingers light on his face, tucking a bit of hair back behind his ear. He smiles, hips still tilted up, waiting and ready for the next buzzing throb to overwhelm his senses again.

Malcolm waits until he realizes it may not come, and he blinks open his eyes and lifts his head to look at her. He asks the question without words, but she doesn’t respond to that so he finds the breath to speak it aloud, relieved when she tells him yes.

His ass already felt empty without the constant waves of sensation, and when he slips the toy free it only leaves him needier. He sits back on his heels and waits as Edrisa slicks up her cock for him, admiring as he has before, how deft her touch is. She gnaws on her lip when she catches him watching, and he doesn’t wait for her to invite him to straddle her lap and fuck himself down onto her dick.

“You don’t want me on top?” she asks. Her hands spread over his belly, palms drifting up and blunt nails scratching back down to raise stripes of pink along his skin.

“Not yet,” he replies, hips shifting in a slow roll. The pressure isn’t much different, but the feel is steady and solid. He begs a kiss from her, and she obliges, her arms wrapping around him to hold him tightly. She’s slight but stronger than she looks.

“Was the suspect the killer?” she asks, her dark eyes alight as she watches him fuck himself.

“No, but someone very close to him was.”

“But you identified them.”

Malcolm tips his head to the side and goes still. “How could you tell?” he asks, feeling his mouth turn upwards. 

“Because you’re in a good mood,” she says.

His smile widens, and he rocks against her. “Maybe it’s because I’m with you,” he says, leaning down to nose aside the thick strands of her hair to whisper the words directly into her ear.

She shivers deliciously. “In that case, why can’t it be both?”

“I want you on top now,” Malcolm murmurs, tonguing her earlobe and drawing another shiver out of her.

“Awesome,” she breathes, and her gaze remains heavy-lidded as he slides off of her and lays himself out on the bed beside her.

Edrisa rolls straight on top of him, landing a nipping bite to his chest and sucking a bright, red mark into his skin before she’s pushing his legs wide and settling herself between them again. He throws his head back with a groan when she’s freshly-slicked up and fucking back into him, not waiting at all before her hips snap forward to drive into him to the hilt. As with the vibe, she doesn’t ramp up slowly, but rather goes rabbit fast, the same wild pace that’d left him breathless the last time. She keeps up the intensity until he can’t form a coherent thought, until he’s clinging, this time not to the sheets but to her.

His mouth falls open on a keening sound that gets chopped to pieces by the slap of her hips against him. He’s trembling now beneath her, pushed past bliss towards the promise of ecstasy.

A fresh tension builds up inside him as she slows to put more force behind each slamming thrust. Her arms hook under his knees to curl at his thighs, to drag her to him to meet the peak of each thrust. Through blurry eyes, he catches the taut line of her brow and the white of her bared teeth, thrilled by seeing her chase her own orgasm even as his is driven out of him to strike hot and wet across his chest.

It’s an endless sort of pleasure, even as the relief of orgasm is short-lived. Edrisa fucks him through it and doesn’t stop, his body overwhelmed, skin humming, until he’s panting and waiting—not for her to stop, but for the moment when she, too, is lost.

She collapses on him when she comes, hips jerking in faint little motions until she stills and blows out a breath against his chest. “Oh my god,” she murmurs, her body shaking with another laugh. “That was _good_.”

Malcolm grins, the tension dropping out of his muscles the longer she stays flopped on top of him.

“Was it good for you?” she asks, lifting her head to peer at him.

He pulls the scattered fall of her hair loose from where it’s caught beneath the frames of her glasses. “Very,” he says and basks in the glow of a beaming smile as she eases away. She kicks off the harness in order to settle right back on top of him again, her legs tangling with his. Sex generally winds him down—and right now, he is very wound down—but he gets the sense that Edrisa is the opposite.

Her eyes narrow thoughtfully, and her face scrunches up a touch. She plucks at a few of the sparse hairs scattered on his chest. “So, at what point are you my boyfriend?” she muses.

Malcolm raises his brows. “Boyfriend?” His pulse races at the thought, but not, he realizes, in a bad way.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it too early to be thinking about that? Should I ask after we go on a few more dates?”

“Honestly, I have no idea how soon is too soon.” Malcolm’s prior experience in actual relationships has been as scattershot as his attempts at dating. The longest relationship he’d ever been in imploded after a couple months, and, even then, labels had never come into play. Social norms are often as arbitrary as the customs that support them, he supposes.

It strikes him then that Edrisa might be the first person he’s dated that he’d even consider properly bringing home to his family—technically, she’d already met his mother, but crime scenes definitely don’t count—and she’s only the second person he’s dated who knew from the get-go that he’s a Whitly. He props an arm behind his head. “Just to be clear, you do want to go on more dates with me?”

Edrisa scoffs. “Is the amount of blood in the human body roughly seven percent of a person’s body weight?”

“Will it count as a date if I go with you to that play party?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Then, I guess you’ll be taking your boyfriend.”

“This is… so _cool._ I’m not going to lie, keeping it on the down-low with my friends on Justice Quest that I’m dating _the_ Malcolm Bright is going to be harder than not telling any of them we’d slept together, but I’ll manage somehow.”

Malcolm laughs and puts his other arm around her. “Well, depending on how this goes, maybe you can introduce me to them some time.”

“Oh god, don’t even say that, two of them live in Brooklyn and one of them is in Jersey. They’d flip,” she says. She snuggles against him for a while, post-sex surge of energy leveling out until eventually her face turns thoughtful. “You know what’s even cooler, though, is I’ve never pierced someone I was romantically involved with before. Do you want to try that? It’d be a real first for me.”

“It’d be a first for me, too, and I would love to try that.”

“Then, it’s a date-date,” Edrisa declares. She rolls away and finds her phone to call herself a ride. “But I’m going to go home now, okay, unless you want me to stay the rest of the night? Your place is nice, but I love my bed, and with the restraints and the night terrors, it works better anyway if I don’t sleep here, I imagine.”

“You imagine correctly,” Malcolm says, pleasantly surprised that she doesn’t push the matter. He watches contentedly as she gets dressed, testing out the word _girlfriend_ in his mind as he imagines introducing her that way.

“Be sure to text me or call me before the party so we can talk about designs,” she says, whirling around to aim a finger at him to emphasize the point. “I have loads of ideas already and we’ll need to narrow it down so I know what supplies to bring.”

“I will,” he promises, slipping out of bed finally to drag on his shorts and see her to the door. “And hey, I’ll call you anyway. That’s what people in budding relationships do, isn’t it? Check in with one another regularly?”

Edrisa smacks her palm against her forehead. “Oh, duh. And hey, maybe there will be another murder so we have a reason to see each other during work, too!”

Having been thinking just about the same thing, Malcolm cracks a smile and says, “If we’re lucky,” and pulls her in for one last kiss goodnight.

**Author's Note:**

> Read more of my [Prodigal Son fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&user_id=ponderosa121), or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter [@ponderosa121](https://twitter.com/ponderosa121) or on Discord in [Prodigal Son Trash](https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD).


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